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So after reading up and finding that video playback isnt brilliant on the tp2 i thougt i would do some tests.
my goal was to find an easy way to watch films. I dont really want to have to convert all my films to mp4 and use the htc album, but i dont really want to have to switch of sense and soft reset every time i have a spare 1/2 hour.
So using the same footage I ran multiple formats on the following players:
coreplayer, TCMP, Media Player and HTC album.
Not really sure how conclusive it is ( and there is certainly more testing that can be done)
i am going to try using MP4forHD to convert the file a last time and try that on all players
have a look at the results and let me know what you think
So basically what you're saying is that the only videos that work are the original AVI and some MP4s with coreplayer without Sense turned on. That sucks.
Interesting results. I have never bothered trying with sense or spb mobile shell off, but for most videos I watch (640x320 or something close, i.e., vga resolution), they seem to work ok on the tilt2. I get some annoying pixelation with TCMP, but the default windows media player seems to play them pretty crisply and smoothly. the only tradeoff there is WMP is pretty low on the totem pole feature wise.
it also seems odd to me that your results get worse when sense is turned off. It's more intuitive that it would work better if you have more ram available. Could this be an issue with a custom rom you flashed? I am using the stock ATT with spb mobile shell. Did you try a different media file?
I am using the stock rom
from what i understand the HTC and windows media use some sort of graphics acceleration
so you dont need to turn off sense.
stringman said:
I am using the stock rom
from what i understand the HTC and windows media use some sort of graphics acceleration
so you dont need to turn off sense.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
True, that makes sense. Still not sure why things get worse with Sense off, but maybe that is just the human side of the measurement, as they do all look pretty close between the two sets? And actually, it gets better for Core, worse for TCMP, and then about the same for the other two.
Do you think it would be worth trying with a different SD card, or better: trying a small video loaded from the device? If you play from the device, you at lease take the age/quality of the SD card out of the experiment as a variable. Even though you wouldn't watch a video from the device in real life, it may be a better way to benchmark, unless you are benchmarking for a specific card.
I think adding a streaming file to the test would be interesting too. Anyway, thanks for the research on this. It is a very interesting topic, imo.
The muisc player wasn't working for me either, and movies really sucked! nothing would play.
I switched roms and now everything works, music plays and comes up in the player, and movies look and play good.
I converted with AVS here are my settings:
Video codec: MPEG4(divX/Xvid compatible)
Audio codec: MPEG2/4 Audio
Frame Size:
Width: 368
Height: 208
Frame Rate:
Bitrate: 520
File Type: mp4 PSP
Channels: Stereo Sample Size: 16bit
Sample Rate: 48000Hz Bitrate: 128kbps
I watched on the built in player and didn't have to turn anything off, my fully charged battery lasted for almost 4 hours of nearly constant use ( i turned it off after i got under ~7% left).
PocketDiVXEncoder
hard to go wrong with PocketDiVXEncoder
http://www.pocketdivxencoder.net/EN_index.htm
its free, and makes amazingly good playable .avi's out of almost anything
the 1.7mb :30 second clip attached below was encoded at 300k video/96k audio, and the whole movie is about 390megs @ this level of quality.
Anything made in PDE thats <= 1200k/128k/640x480 seems to play flawlessly in COREplayer
my issue is that if i have to convert any file to anyformat its a real pain.
on the td2 i could tranfer a avi fil from my laptop to the sd card and watch the film no problem.
now i have to convert it to a mp4 or something and to a particular resolution
ok so its about 40mins but its a pain
so bearing in mind that this does need to be done
whats the best format ( i am leaning to mp4)
whats the best resolution settings
whats the best prog ( i am using mp4for hd at the moment)
cheers
Hi,
What is the best movie player for the Galaxy Nexus to play WMV, MKV etc...?
I have tried DicePlayer Trial version, and it works very good. But it expired now, and I cant buy the full version because the sellers account is suspended.
What would you recommend?
I've tried Dice Player, VPlayer and MX Video Player.
I didnt like Dice Player as the soft buttons always stayed on the screen, regardless of how big you made the video. The Hardware playback was jerky and software seemed to be nice and smooth. When I was watching a video, I'd have to pause the video first (which wouldnt work straight away). But when I clicked the home button and opened the video back up, it wouldnt remember where it was last paused.
On the other hand, MX Video Player is fantastic. It's on V1.5 at the moment and I've already watched 2 BluRay rips (4-6gb each!) and it's performed flawlessly. The screen expands to remove the soft buttons, you can increase the size of the video with pinch-to-zoom. If you slide your finger along the top of the screen, it fast forwards/rewinds the video in small increments. Along the left controls the brightness, along the right controls the volume.
When I pause, it remembers where I left off, and it's not crashed on me once.
All in all, for my purposes, MX Video is the best....
Interested as well.
I'm using MX player to play my AVI's, it goes full screen, seems fine (some play better under software mode rather than hardware mode).
I used to use rockplayer on my desire, but that didnt go full screen on the Nexus.
@ arun1uk
I just gave it a try. Its amazing
I got 1 question
What are these Decoders? And which one should I choose?
H / W Decoder
S / W Decoder
S / W Decoder (Fast)
Wishing VLC had an app!
don't get your hopes up...they've been "developing" one on and off since Android launched.
The decoder settings seem not work for me.
If have 2 xvid avi files and an 720p mkv (h.264 video codec) lokally on my GNexus.
Independent from what i choose in decoder settings (SW, SW Fast, Hardware is not selectable, i hope this is normal) the avi file is ALWAYS played in HW Mode and the mkv file is always played in SW Fast mode.
Even if i select SW, or SW fast, the avi is played in HW mode.
The mkv is always played in SW Fast mode, even if i unselect the Fast mode option. (HW mode can't be selected, but even if i disable SW mode completly it is played in SW Fast, so it seems not to be able to play it in HW mode).
I used mx player to play an avi it worked perfectly!
Diceplayer is the only one I've found that could play all of my video reliably, in terms of audio and whatnot, as well as handle playing 1080p videos with zero lag or any other issues. MX would be able to play the 1080p, but it would be playing so slow that the audio would get out of sync immediately.
arun1uk said:
I didnt like Dice Player as the soft buttons always stayed on the screen, regardless of how big you made the video.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you just give it a second once the video is fullscreen the buttons will go away
VPLAYER
VPLAYER is a good one
anyone ever tried mobo player?
nuumuun said:
anyone ever tried mobo player?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, use it on my Xoom tablet. It's awesome and definitely one of the best (if not the best). But it's not optimized for ICS yet I believe. So for now, MX player and Diceplayer are very good alternatives.
I loved mobo player on my Xoom. I use MX Video Player on my Galaxy Nexus...however the "decoder" options are just for show for me....hardware never seems to work as well as software....bit mad.
Dice Player. Seems to work for about everything for me.
MX Player is a great free player optimized for ICS and the GNex, but make sure you use Software Decoding for best results. HW Decoding slows it down and SW FAST just destroys picture quality. I tested a 720p MKV file with a generous bitrate, should be fine.
Dice Player is better than MX Player by options only, giving you brightness control and other tweaks. Unfortunately, it's a 3 day trail and the full version has been pulled because they are having problems with setting up their payment account.
dnlsmy said:
Dice Player is better than MX Player by options only, giving you brightness control and other tweaks. Unfortunately, it's a 3 day trail and the full version has been pulled because they are having problems with setting up their payment account.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
MX Player has also brightness control.... you need to swipe your finders on the left side of the screen (up or down)
dnlsmy said:
MX Player is a great free player optimized for ICS and the GNex, but make sure you use Software Decoding for best results. HW Decoding slows it down and SW FAST just destroys picture quality. I tested a 720p MKV file with a generous bitrate, should be fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As i already posted here it's not always spossible to use software decoding. At least for me. my xvid avi files were always decoded in HW mode and are not played smoothly.
mx player seems to be the best option for now (only use sw decoding tho).
mobo player requires me to download some codec that doesn't work. can't get it past that installation screen.
tried on galaxy nexus with modaco custom rom.
I found MX Player, and I love it. But when I recieved 1.5 update, I can't reach setting menu (no SW button, no button on screen).
my .mkv videos dont play sound . unless i use softwere decoding on mobo but the the video is a lag fest. anyone know of a good way to convert them for one x friendly viewing
DicePlayer is working flawlessly for me with my 720p .mkv files. Buttery smooth video and audio is perfectly in sync.
Try Avidemux its free.
Just copy the video and re-encode the audio.
Works spot on for me.
mishmac said:
Try Avidemux its free.
Just copy the video and re-encode the audio.
Works spot on for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks works great changing it to aac
and its fast
Theres also bs player lite if you don't like the menu bar in diceplayer.
On MX Player you can set it to use the hardware decoder to decode video (H.264), software decoder to decode audio (Dolby 5.1/DTS) and enable fast mode.
720p and 1080p .mkv's tested here working perfectly.
Yeah currently using MX Player. But you gotta set the decoders away from HW every time you start playing an .mkv file.
What does Avidemux do exactly? Is mkv not really supported by ICS?
Thanks
Your audio is probably DTS or AC3 encoded, Dice Player can handle those and use hardware decoding. Best video player for any Android it supports IMO. No dirty transcoding or anything, just drag n drop and everything works.
NZtechfreak said:
Your audio is probably DTS or AC3 encoded, Dice Player can handle those and use hardware decoding. Best video player for any Android it supports IMO. No dirty transcoding or anything, just drag n drop and everything works.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah, gonna try Dice and do some experiments, like, see if it can play my mkv files with hardware acceleration instead of software.
kythor said:
Ah, gonna try Dice and do some experiments, like, see if it can play my mkv files with hardware acceleration instead of software.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try MX Player. You can try HW video and SW audio and see how that goes. Decoding isn't locked to the same type between video and audio on MX
I just tried Dice Player and it can play the mkv's audio with HW.
I don't think my ears are sensitive enough to hear the difference, but I read that HW acceleration uses lesser battery juice than SW?
kythor said:
I just tried Dice Player and it can play the mkv's audio with HW.
I don't think my ears are sensitive enough to hear the difference, but I read that HW acceleration uses lesser battery juice than SW?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes it does cos most SoC's come with a built in decoder. SW decode would mean you're using your CPU power to convert audio/video on the fly as you watch/listen, causing more battery drain.
Here is a comparison on what I have tried so far, for playing .mkv files:
Default HTC player: No audio at all and you cannot setup decoding to play audio whatsoever.
Mobo player: The same as HTC player.
Dice player: Audio works and videos play using hardware acceleration, but if you have stock rom, you cannot watch videos in full screen because of the menu bar, which is a huge deal breaker for me.
BS player: ICS friendly (menu button and all), plays videos with audio fine on software decoding mode or hardware decoding mode (BSPlayer engine). But on hardware decoding mode (system), the video is really bad, it has some corrupted squares all over it. I reckon that "HW decoding mode (system)" should be utilizing Tegra 3, right?
MX player: Also ICS friendly. Plays videos with audio fine on software decoding mode, but on hardware decoding mode, there is no sound. There is, however, an option to software decode audio when playing hardware decoded video, but, when I select that, the video completely stops and it's unplayable.
So, the final conclusion is this:
In MX player, currently the only way to watch videos is by software decoding. BS player can use hardware decoding using its own engine, but actually I don't know what "BSPlayer engine" utilizes for hw decoding. So the winner should be BS player, but the problem is that I really much more prefer MX over BS, due to other functions that it has and the overall appearance and experience.
My question to you guys is this: are there any negative effects if I use MX player with software decoding? Will my battery last shorter if CPU does all the decoding instead of the Tegra 3? I guess it will in theory, but has anyone tried and actually seen the difference with HW over SW decoding?
I sure hope that all of these app devs will soon follow ICS standards and new phones with graphics accelerations.
Also, if anyone can suggest a video player that hasn't been mentioned here, please do so!
xaeder said:
Here is a comparison on what I have tried so far, for playing .mkv files:
So, the final conclusion is this:
In MX player, currently the only way to watch videos is by software decoding. BS player can use hardware decoding using its own engine, but actually I don't know what "BSPlayer engine" utilizes for hw decoding. So the winner should be BS player, but the problem is that I really much more prefer MX over BS, due to other functions that it has and the overall appearance and experience.
My question to you guys is this: are there any negative effects if I use MX player with software decoding? Will my battery last shorter if CPU does all the decoding instead of the Tegra 3? I guess it will in theory, but has anyone tried and actually seen the difference with HW over SW decoding?
I sure hope that all of these app devs will soon follow ICS standards and new phones with graphics accelerations.
Also, if anyone can suggest a video player that hasn't been mentioned here, please do so!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Software decoding will always consume more power. How much more I do not know. Also, Tegra 3 IS the CPU. Hardware decode means that there is a specific chip in the SoC that is there specifically to encode/decode video/audio and hence CPU resources are minimal. When that chip does not support a certain format, it's forced to render it in software.
Also, .mkv is just a container, there are many audio and video formats that can be encoded into .mkv
Thank you for your answer! I understand now what Tegra 3 actually is.
Oh, and for the format, sorry I forgot to mention. You are right, .mkv is just a container
The format of my files tested is:
Video: MPEG4 Video (H264) 1280x720 23.98fps [Video]
Audio: Dolby AC3 48000Hz stereo [Audio]
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As mentioned in other posts... If you have to use S/W in MX, it's because you have a 5.1 audio track.
Use something like mkv2mp4, and that will convert the audio stream to 2ch
Then MX will play the video & audio with H/W
adamsweeting said:
As mentioned in other posts... If you have to use S/W in MX, it's because you have a 5.1 audio track.
Use something like mkv2mp4, and that will convert the audio stream to 2ch
Then MX will play the video & audio with H/W
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is helpful. Thanks
I think BSplayer is best. Sure, it uses it's own HW engine(if you want), but it shouldn't be any big differences I hope. It sure as hell uses alot less battery then SW anyway. And also, BSplayer can play straight from .rar's and stream from a windows share in HW-mode (with it's own engine ofc)! Most players switch back to SW when you play through network but not bsplayer. And BSplayer also downloads subs automatically. The only downside is that it's kind of ugly. Haha
Now, it they only would port XBMC to android..
---------- Post added at 10:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:46 PM ----------
adamsweeting said:
As mentioned in other posts... If you have to use S/W in MX, it's because you have a 5.1 audio track.
Use something like mkv2mp4, and that will convert the audio stream to 2ch
Then MX will play the video & audio with H/W
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The whole idea with these media players is to not have to convert every video you've want to see. BSPlayer is the best player, period. It can play everything I've tried as of yet anyhow.
There it however one thing I hate, but thats probably the phone (or drivers) and not bsplayer. If you play say 720p over network with a bluetooth headset, it will lag. It's if they haven't given enough bandwidth to the wifi/bluetooth chip. Don't think I had this problem on my old phone.
just tried Dice player there, i must say it is really good. no lag what so ever, and the sound was perfect, and the menu bar didn't bother me at all.
some of them might work in whatever app you want to use, but i can tell you that some of them will never work right. i bought a Cowon D2 (what a mistake!) and ended up selling it. some mkvs didn't show video and a lot of them didn't have audio. it depends on the codecs that were used. it's the same on PS3. there are certain videos and audios that you need better hardware to play. i've seen people say that the audio has to be "AC3" for it to work on PS3. i wouldn't waste too much time with it and you should just convert it lower or use a computer with mid to high level AMD/Nvidia and some $100+ sound card. if you're trying to watch bluray disc rips that keep some of the quality, then it most likely won't work.
although the Epic 4G Touch could play most videos, some of my videos (mp4,avi,divx) could not be played(it has sound but no picture) and the way to solve it is to download a video player on market on use software decoding which eats up cpu usage which in turn eats up battery life
according to THIS, it should be able to play almost all format there is available but that isn't always the case.
so basically what i am looking at is
*hardware accelerated Video/Audio Codec
*convert the video to 480 x 800 (or close depending on the aspect ratio of movie)
*high bitrate (not too high that it would drain the battery life or the file would become too big and the quality is more like a placebo)
*Video/Audio Converter software that does the above list
i am thinking about h.264 but do not know what presets the E4GT supports
Check out vPlayer with unlocker as well, have that player as well add mkvideo, from play store and have had 0 issues with ANY type of video, as well as no battery drain issues with either, but my stock video player hadn't given me issues with any type of video file either...might want to have that checked
Sent from my SPH-D710 using XDA
although the Epic 4G Touch could play most videos, some of my videos (mp4,avi,divx) could not be played(it has sound but no picture) and the way to solve it is to download a video player on market on use software decoding which eats up cpu usage which in turn eats up battery life
according to THIS, it should be able to play almost all format there is available but that isn't always the case.
so basically what i am looking at is
*hardware accelerated Video/Audio Codec
*convert the video to 480 x 800 (or close depending on the aspect ratio of movie)
*high bitrate (not too high that it would drain the battery life or the file would become too big and the quality is more like a placebo)
*Video/Audio Converter software that does the above list
i am thinking about h.264 but do not know what presets the E4GT supports
I use iSkysoft on my PC to convert to mp4 and have over 1200 movies. After the conversion all the android players work on all the movies. I also use Tversity to stream 800x480 over 4G and 320x240 over 3G. If streaming keep the bit rate of the conversion at 900kbs or lower. Otherwise, you will get buffering problems. $20 per year for a dynamic DNS to stream Tversity over any mobile browser on android from your PC. 320x240 is a little grainy. However, works very well with no buffering issues for in motion in your car. Tethering to a larger tablet also works well for in motion in the car.